Daley can't scratch himself without the act being open to interpretation. It is an occupational hazard.

But even though elected officials have to be sensitive about political geography and their roots, this seemed much ado about little.

It is one thing to hold the mayor up to examination and analysis about his policies and performance, but it gets creepy when the frenzy feeds upon his family affairs.

"It points up how difficult politics and public life can be and why no one wants to go into it," said one sympathetic Daleyite.

"Daley's being whipsawed between his commitment to his family-in the end a fundamental value that links him up with his constituency-and this political consideration of the symbolic meaning of his leaving Bridgeport," he said.

Chicago's parochialism and obsession for the Kremlinology of City Hall had a field day after word got out that the mayor and his family will probably move out of the Daley clan's working-class enclave in the 11th Ward.

Daleys have been a part of Bridgeport for a century and keys to the mayor's office have jingled in the pockets of local pols, including this mayor and his father, for most of the last six decades.

But Daley has decided to pack up and move out of the historic, quintessentially Chicago neighborhood with all indications being that he is headed for some yuppified Near South Side development called Central Station.

The reaction was predictable, from the public, politicians and pundits alike. Overkill.

What kind of name is that, Central Station, for a neighborhood? Sounds like he's going to be living at the bus depot. Why, a prefab neighborhood like that probably doesn't even have its own St. Patrick's Day parade. Don't buy the Daleys new beer mugs for the rec room as a house-warming gift; make it brandy snifters for the study.

To hear it told, instead of the womenfolk using bleach and a stiff brush to scrub the sidewalks, the au pairs use champagne cocktail and a loofah sponge to perform the chore. (Actually, I think most instances of sidewalk washing in Chicago are to clean away bloodstains from drive-by shootings.)

And on it went. Callers will be yakking about this on talk-radio shows for weeks to come. As if this purported cultural divide will affect the way Daley does his job or alter the fortunes of Bridgeport, which has been a neighborhood in transition for more than a decade.

"My role as mayor is to work with people from all walks of life," Daley said last week. To suggest that he does otherwise just because of where he lives would be, well, as unfair as accusing Gov. Jim Edgar of being insensitive toward Chicago just because he is a Downstater.

Of course, long before most Chicagoans ever heard of Edgar, the Daleys, including this one, were accused of an insularity that catered to Bridgeport and the Southwest Side to the exclusion of every place else in the city. Thus the angst of neighbors and folks from Canaryville to Mt. Greenwood.

That political partiality, and the racial overtones that went with it, had become more myth than reality. Anti-patronage laws, heightened political sensitivity and Daley's personal movement around the city made his a more open administration. Like the kids of a lot of parents, his kids traveled to schools outside the neighborhood. For years, Daley has worked out at the tony East Bank Club, not the Valentine Chicago Boys Club gymnasium-where photos of his father and him hang in the lobby-at the corner of his block.

Still, the insinuations were that Daley had become a swelled head and it would cost him politically.

"A lot of people feel that he's getting a little too big for his britches," carped one Bridgeport man. "It will hurt the perception of him as a guy who cares about neighborhoods," said professional Southwest Side whiner Jean Mayer.

"He might be seen as abandoning his base. It won't help him," opined Ald. Lawrence Bloom (5th). "I don't think it will do any political harm," Ald. William Beavers (7th) cynically offered, reasoning that critics "couldn't use (Bridgeport) against him."

First of all, it is sort of admirable that Daley has stayed put for his lifelong 50 years. One reason for Bridgeport's diversity recently has been the movement of established families out of the city to places such as Bridgeview and Lockport.

Now Daley's kids are growing up and his family-probably his wife Maggie-wants to move. America has become a much more transient and mobile society; this goes on with average families everywhere.

I've lived in the same (better) neighborhood elsewhere on the Southwest Side for most of the last 25 years. We love it there.

But when the two lads who earn their allowances as snow-shovelers, lawn-mowers and dog-walkers move out, I'll want new vistas before becoming too stooped to enjoy them.

Secondly, it shouldn't hurt Daley's perception as someone who loves the city and all its neighborhoods if he does his job (better). And as long as that's the case, it won't hurt him politically. For one thing, who is out there to challenge? Very few voters are going to pick David Orr or Eugene Pincham over the mayor just because he changed his address.

Finally, despite all of the hullabaloo, the mayor's only motive is doing what is right for himself and his family. And that is a strong reflection of good character.